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Ye know not know what ye ask!

According
to St Mark; Chapter10Verse
35; James and John made a specific request of the master, they had dreamed
as most of the Hebrews dreamt of the coming King of Israel who would set
Jerusalem free and establish his kingdom on Mount Zion and in righteousness,
rule the world. They thought of Jesus as this kind of King and they were
thinking of that day when Jesus would reign supreme as this new King of Israel
and they were saying “ when you establish your Kingdom let one of us sit on the
right and the other on the left hand of your throne.

Now very
quickly, we would automatically condemn James and John and we would say they
were selfish, why they would make such a selfish request. But before we condemn
them too quickly, let us look calmly and honestly at ourselves today and we
will discover that we too have those basic desires for recognition, that same
desire for attention, that same desire to be first. Of course the other
disciples got mad at James and John but we must understand that we have the
same James and John qualities; deep down within all of us - an instinct - a
desire to be upfront, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first and it
is something that runs the whole garment of life for all humanity and so before
we condemn them, let us see that we all have the same instinct. We all want to
be important, to surpass others, to lead the parade. This quest for
recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the
basic impulse, the basic drive of human life.

We began early
to ask life to put us first – our first cry as a baby was a bid for attention.
In adult life, we still have it and we really never get by it, we like to do
something good and we like to be praised for it and if you don’t believe that,
you just go on living life and you will discover very soon that you like to be
praised. Somehow this warm glow we feel when we are praised or when our name is
in print is sort of like a vitamin A to our ego. Nobody is unhappy when they
are praised, even if they know they don’t deserve it and even if they don’t
believe it.

The inherent presence
of this instinct within all of us explains why we are so often taken by
advertisements, those gentlemen and ladies of massive verbal persuasion who
have a way of saying things that in turn get us in the bind. Sort of like - in
order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whisky; in order to make
your neighbors envious, you must drive this kind of car; in order to be lovely
to love, you must wear this kind of perfume - and before we know it, we are
just buying that stuff?!

I got an email the
other day, I opened it up and it read;

“Dear
Ger, you are a hard worker, progressive and an asset to us as an Organization” After
that kind of start, of course I wanted to continue reading the rest of the email – after those graceful
words explaining me so exactly, of course I wanted to read to its entirety.

If this instinct
is not harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. You will end
up trying to push others down to get yourself up. This uncontrolled aspect
leads to exclusivism and this is the danger of social clubs and fraternities.
That can happen even in the church where I once heard a preacher say; amidst us
today we have Doctors, Businessmen, Teachers and Lawyers. He said it as if the
rest of the congregation seldom counted or existed. The church is the one place
that the Doctor ought to forget that he is a Doctor; it is the one place that
the PhD ought to forget that he is a PhD and the lawyer, that he studied law.

It does not stop
in the church, it goes into the struggles between nations and I will submit
that the nations of the world are engaged in a bitter colossal contest for
supremacy and if something does not happen to stop this trend, am sorely afraid
that we won’t be here to talk about brotherhood too many more years because
nations are caught up in this instinct as well.

What was the
answer that Jesus gave to James and John? One would have thought that Jesus
would have said, you were out of your place, you were selfish, why would raise
such a question? But that is not what Jesus said. He said, “You want to be
great? You want to be important? You want to be significant”? You must be, but
he reordered priorities and said, don’t give up this instinct, it’s a good
instinct if you use it right, keep feeling the need for importance and love. I
want you to be first in moral excellence; I want you to be first in generosity;
that is what I want you to do.

Jesus said,
brethren I can’t give you greatness and I can’t make you first. True greatness
comes not by favoritism but by fitness. The right hand or the left are not mine
for the giving, they belong to those who are prepared. Recognize that he who is
greatest amongst you, shall be the servant. Everybody can be great because
everybody can serve. I portend that don’t have to have a University Degree to
serve, you don’t have to know about Einstein’s theory of relatively to serve,
and you don’t have to know the theory of aerodynamics to serve. You only need a
heart full of grace generated by love and you can be that servant.

Every now and
then I think about that day when the human folk is victimized by that common
denominator; that something that we call death - We all think about it - and
every now and then I think about my own death, I think about my own funeral but
I don’t think about it in a morbid sense. Every now and then I think about what
I would want to be said when I have to meet my death. All of the other shallow
things will not matter, I will not have any money to leave behind, I won’t have
the luxurious things of life to leave behind but I just want to leave a
committed life behind. If I can help somebody, show somebody who is travelling
wrong the right way, if can do my duty as a Christian then my living will not
be in vain. I want to be on your right or left hand side as commitment so that 1
can make my contribution to humanity, a new one at that.

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